This morning as I was getting ready for work, my youngest daughter calls me from the school bus and says, “I forgot my binder. Can you bring it to me, everything for today is in it. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!” Who can resist that, right? So, on the way to work I drop by Cedar Heights and leave the binder in the office. I told the kind woman at the desk, “This is for my daughter. She is in seventh grade, which means you will see me many, many more times dropping things off for her.”
Over the years my children have called for various things they have forgotten to be brought by the school. Here are the most common, “Daddy, please bring me…”
1. Lunch. My children forget their lunch far too often. I find this as a great surprise because all they ever want to do is eat. How can people who eat that much ever forget their lunch? It doesn’t make sense.
2. Forms. I don’t know what it is about children that causes them to procrastinate, but it seems like they wait until the last minute to turn in that form for whatever–a permission slip, a school picture form, a health document or whatever–but then they forget to bring it on that absolute last day it is due. Forms will be my ruin.
3. Schoolwork. This really starts happening in junior high and continues through high school. Schoolwork doesn’t seem to be that pressing in elementary. To my way of thinking, the key reason they often forget schoolwork is the ridiculous schedule they are on. I have yet to figure out how you can have 6th period first? Back in my day, we had the same classes everyday. It wasn’t until college that I first had a MWF then a TTH schedule. But South Kitsap doesn’t do either of those. I don’t know what their method is but it seems like my daughter could have math on Tuesday, then again on Friday and the following Monday but not again until Thursday. No wonder they don’t know what day homework is due.
4. Money. By money I don’t mean lunch money, I mean money for things. $30 for PE uniforms, $40 for a band field trip, $120 for ASB, $15 for homecoming tickets; there is always something they need money for. It often feels like the school is trying to bleed me dry. If I had more than 2 kids I would probably have to get a second job delivering pizzas just to get by.